With the holiday season drawing near, the ladies of Hope Springs, North Carolina, are making plans for a cake cookbook--a project that will hopefully lift the spirits of a beloved member of their close-knot quartet. But Margaret Peele is downhearted and uninspired now that her cancer has returned. All she wants for Christmas this year is to visit her mother's Texas hometown...and to see her absent friend, pastor Charlotte Stewart, who left Hope Springs to run a battered women's shelter.
